Great wording. If the homicide rate never increased more than 3% because it was already at record highs then dropped to 0%, but then jumped to 5%, that would be the highest increase too. They're talking about the rate of increase rather than the plain rate because I'm guessing that won't get clicks and won't drum up anti-crime bullshit. The rate of homicide can increase dramatically while homicides remain rare. Especially if we're talking year-on-year rates with 2020. I can't tell you how much bullshit has been said because people are comparing current numbers of anything to last year, which was a outlying year.
>1357 homicides in 2020
>1721 in 2021
Not trying to trivialize death but goddamn are you fucking kidding me? Less than 2000 homicides? There are over 300M people in the US. Covid killed probably at least 1M in a year and people act like it doesn't exist. Yet 2000 people get murdered and it's suddenly every street corner is unsafe.
I fucking hate crime statistics. It's all such bullshit. Nobody ever reads them correctly. They're never presented correctly. You can use them to justify almost anything and read anything you want out of them.
Agreed; using percentages when the absolute numbers are small is deceptive without further context, and in the context of this article and the media at large is likely fearmongering bull.
More people died of COVID in the US over the last 2 weeks than were killed via homicide all of last year
Homicides are a bad thing, and sober material analysis means engaging data how it is, not making excuses. A 20% increase in homicides is the same relative increase as Covid had on "all kinds of dying". It's absolutely going to worry people, and plugging your ears because the surface narrative looks "bad" for your side is peak lib shit.
Lots of "materialists" ITT playing 5-D chess (have to deny crime stats because otherwise the pro-police crowd!!!!) instead of the likely answer - multiple overlapping crises have made society more violent at an alarmingly fast rate.
Of course they're a bad thing and if they're up we know why. I'm not arguing that homicide isn't up, I'm arguing about the framing and how the numbers are portrayed in order to stoke suburban fear. A 33% increase means shit all if the increase is from a very low number to another very low number. How many homicides is too many? If 2000 is unacceptable, then what's the solution? Even if you completely satisfied all material conditions, there would still be some murders in a population of hundreds of millions. Should there only be 100 murders per year and that's the criteria for deciding 2000 is too many? 2 is a 100% increase over 1. So if there were 1 murder last year and 2 this year, that's a 100% increase. Is that a crisis? It probably is if all the media runs "100% increase in crime" stats during primetime.
I don't know how to be more materialist or sober than doing the actual math and looking at the numbers relative to the other numbers.
Historical materialism holds that you can't take pieces of information in isolation. Saying 33% is terrible just because it's higher than last year or any year, without regard to what that actually represents in the material world, isn't materialism either. As I just said multiple times, you can have a highest-in-history rate increase without the actual cases being common. It's a pretty simple math problem to figure out.
It's not 33% from a "very low" number though. Homicide rates are lower than they were in the early 90s, but they've been lower for a long time. Currently, the homicide rate is at its highest in close to 25 years, and it happened suddenly. That IS a big change!
Instead of worrying about the optics and immediately acting the way they want you to ("loony lefties deny violence!!!!") There's very real material reasons why violence is increasing, but let's just deny them because we assume people will get the wrong idea.
But nobody is denying that rises in crime come from material reasons. Still not understanding where you're getting that from. You can hold that roving gangs aren't coming to murder suburban and rural America while also knowing that poor covid response and degradation in material conditions = more crime. They're not mutually exclusive.
This is some tired bullshit and the material analysis of this situation is not about the increase, but about the millions of dollars of media coverage being thrown at this small increase. 300 more murders overall against a year when half the country was on rotating lockdown is a crisis? No.
The crisis is that during that year, people began to realize that the police aren't necessary and the established capitalist order needs an excuse to continue to publicly fund their foot soldiers.
Dude, denying an massive increase in violence is not defending the cops. You all sound like literal caricatures. Yes, if we just lie to the public in our own way, we will abolish police tomorrow!
This isn't even an uptick worth mentioning, fucking 10 people per month in the entire country is nothing when 1000x that are dying each month from a preventable disease that is being ignored.
The only reason anyone is hearing about this is because they want to scare people into giving the police more money full stop. They don't plan to do anything about it. Stop supporting police union propaganda.
Dude, the homicide rate is as high in 2020 as it was in 1995. The obvious answer here is "Police budgets have increased, but crime is the same. Police are useless".
The propaganda is Lefties doing insane cope because one statistic "looks bad", when in fact an increase in the homicide rate despite the massive increase in police and prisons is proof that they don't do shit.
Dude, police are getting more money. The only reason some police departments were defunded was because of Covid. No propaganda is needed, people are scared.
Talking about a "largest increase" from 2020 (wonder why that might be an outlier) rather than the absolute number compared to all previous years is obvious stat-cropping to justify "tough on crime" nonsense. You're replying to a comment which makes this same point.
You're all being too clever by half. Crime is up for very real material reasons, not some insane conspiracy about CNN lying to hurt the police abolition movement. That's some Breitbart comment section level shit.
If you were clever, you'd say "wow, despite the increase in police, crime is still up". Or you could simply deny reality because it's nothing but police union propaganda.
:bruh: All everyone is saying is they pick which statistics they emphasize and then do a media blitz because, surprise surprise, the people who own media companies also support the police big-time.
what are the material reasons then? I've seen stats that say theft is down which doesn't make any sense.
Are people just sick of everything so they're murdering others as soon as lockdowns stop and nothing is really done on COVID?
Also notice that CNN isn't using a 5 year rolling average to compare to, instead the most outlier year they could. It's still up but i hate dishonest stats.
Just a general breakdown in society caused by the complete failure of our government and institutions to come up with and enforce a reasonable response. The added stress from job loss, the toll on relationships from being home all day, etc. plays a role.
Great wording. If the homicide rate never increased more than 3% because it was already at record highs then dropped to 0%, but then jumped to 5%, that would be the highest increase too. They're talking about the rate of increase rather than the plain rate because I'm guessing that won't get clicks and won't drum up anti-crime bullshit. The rate of homicide can increase dramatically while homicides remain rare. Especially if we're talking year-on-year rates with 2020. I can't tell you how much bullshit has been said because people are comparing current numbers of anything to last year, which was a outlying year.
>1357 homicides in 2020
>1721 in 2021
Not trying to trivialize death but goddamn are you fucking kidding me? Less than 2000 homicides? There are over 300M people in the US. Covid killed probably at least 1M in a year and people act like it doesn't exist. Yet 2000 people get murdered and it's suddenly every street corner is unsafe.
I fucking hate crime statistics. It's all such bullshit. Nobody ever reads them correctly. They're never presented correctly. You can use them to justify almost anything and read anything you want out of them.
Agreed; using percentages when the absolute numbers are small is deceptive without further context, and in the context of this article and the media at large is likely fearmongering bull.
More people died of COVID in the US over the last 2 weeks than were killed via homicide all of last year
All of this is just copaganda and all of the big media---local outlets and national---are in on it.
Homicides are a bad thing, and sober material analysis means engaging data how it is, not making excuses. A 20% increase in homicides is the same relative increase as Covid had on "all kinds of dying". It's absolutely going to worry people, and plugging your ears because the surface narrative looks "bad" for your side is peak lib shit.
Lots of "materialists" ITT playing 5-D chess (have to deny crime stats because otherwise the pro-police crowd!!!!) instead of the likely answer - multiple overlapping crises have made society more violent at an alarmingly fast rate.
Of course they're a bad thing and if they're up we know why. I'm not arguing that homicide isn't up, I'm arguing about the framing and how the numbers are portrayed in order to stoke suburban fear. A 33% increase means shit all if the increase is from a very low number to another very low number. How many homicides is too many? If 2000 is unacceptable, then what's the solution? Even if you completely satisfied all material conditions, there would still be some murders in a population of hundreds of millions. Should there only be 100 murders per year and that's the criteria for deciding 2000 is too many? 2 is a 100% increase over 1. So if there were 1 murder last year and 2 this year, that's a 100% increase. Is that a crisis? It probably is if all the media runs "100% increase in crime" stats during primetime.
I don't know how to be more materialist or sober than doing the actual math and looking at the numbers relative to the other numbers.
Historical materialism holds that you can't take pieces of information in isolation. Saying 33% is terrible just because it's higher than last year or any year, without regard to what that actually represents in the material world, isn't materialism either. As I just said multiple times, you can have a highest-in-history rate increase without the actual cases being common. It's a pretty simple math problem to figure out.
It's not 33% from a "very low" number though. Homicide rates are lower than they were in the early 90s, but they've been lower for a long time. Currently, the homicide rate is at its highest in close to 25 years, and it happened suddenly. That IS a big change!
Instead of worrying about the optics and immediately acting the way they want you to ("loony lefties deny violence!!!!") There's very real material reasons why violence is increasing, but let's just deny them because we assume people will get the wrong idea.
But nobody is denying that rises in crime come from material reasons. Still not understanding where you're getting that from. You can hold that roving gangs aren't coming to murder suburban and rural America while also knowing that poor covid response and degradation in material conditions = more crime. They're not mutually exclusive.
Dude, there’s more than 2000 homicide a a year. I think you read a stat wrong
No, you don't understand. Crime doesn't exist, the police just make it all up. Literally no one has ever been murdered before, it's all psyop.
:downbear: shut up cop
Didnt know we had :thumb-cop: on hexbear...
This is some tired bullshit and the material analysis of this situation is not about the increase, but about the millions of dollars of media coverage being thrown at this small increase. 300 more murders overall against a year when half the country was on rotating lockdown is a crisis? No.
The crisis is that during that year, people began to realize that the police aren't necessary and the established capitalist order needs an excuse to continue to publicly fund their foot soldiers.
Dude, denying an massive increase in violence is not defending the cops. You all sound like literal caricatures. Yes, if we just lie to the public in our own way, we will abolish police tomorrow!
You're a clown lmao
This isn't even an uptick worth mentioning, fucking 10 people per month in the entire country is nothing when 1000x that are dying each month from a preventable disease that is being ignored.
The only reason anyone is hearing about this is because they want to scare people into giving the police more money full stop. They don't plan to do anything about it. Stop supporting police union propaganda.
Dude, the homicide rate is as high in 2020 as it was in 1995. The obvious answer here is "Police budgets have increased, but crime is the same. Police are useless".
The propaganda is Lefties doing insane cope because one statistic "looks bad", when in fact an increase in the homicide rate despite the massive increase in police and prisons is proof that they don't do shit.
Dude, police are getting more money. The only reason some police departments were defunded was because of Covid. No propaganda is needed, people are scared.
Stooge
How is an increase in homicide despite more police being a "stooge"? If anything, this proves they're worthless, but go off.
You are a stooge because you are a goofy stupid-hair motherfucker incapable of understanding simple things like ladders
Talking about a "largest increase" from 2020 (wonder why that might be an outlier) rather than the absolute number compared to all previous years is obvious stat-cropping to justify "tough on crime" nonsense. You're replying to a comment which makes this same point.
You're right, we are all stupid for not buying CNN's line here
You're all being too clever by half. Crime is up for very real material reasons, not some insane conspiracy about CNN lying to hurt the police abolition movement. That's some Breitbart comment section level shit.
Nobody is claiming a conspiracy or even disputing the data but thank you for calling me clever
If you were clever, you'd say "wow, despite the increase in police, crime is still up". Or you could simply deny reality because it's nothing but police union propaganda.
:bruh: All everyone is saying is they pick which statistics they emphasize and then do a media blitz because, surprise surprise, the people who own media companies also support the police big-time.
All I'm saying is that it's better to flip the script than to try to cry foul.
Yeah, but you can do both. That guy got the wrong numbers from the video, but he's right that focusing on the increase is bullshit stat-cropping.
Also, this is a discussion forum for leftists, we're not debating chuds here.
Again nobody is denying the veracity of the data you are missing the point big time
what are the material reasons then? I've seen stats that say theft is down which doesn't make any sense.
Are people just sick of everything so they're murdering others as soon as lockdowns stop and nothing is really done on COVID?
Also notice that CNN isn't using a 5 year rolling average to compare to, instead the most outlier year they could. It's still up but i hate dishonest stats.
Just a general breakdown in society caused by the complete failure of our government and institutions to come up with and enforce a reasonable response. The added stress from job loss, the toll on relationships from being home all day, etc. plays a role.
What are these numbers??? A quick search shows it's way more than this.
I agree that it's stat-cropping though. Bullshit police stenography.
It's what was behind the person in the CNN clip. Not sure if that's one state or what.
There’s at least 12,000 homicide a a year, nomally. That’s not the total